Re: Drug Legalization -- Reduces use!

[Margaret Tarbet <tarbet@swaa.com>]

On Sun, 24 Jan 1999 15:13:36 -0500, Rick wrote:

>Based on nothing whatsoever besides my own personal opinions,
>I've always been against criminalization of drugs. When we outlawed
>alcohol, we promoted a whole new generation of organized crime.
>(I don't think we lost too many drinkers, either) I imagine that our
>present policies are keeping a lot of extremely nasty  people rolling
>in dough as we speak.
>
>I -am- concerned about a few issues, though. Assuming that all the
>controls on drugs come off:
>
>- How do we keep airline pilots, brain surgeons, etc. from doing a few
>  lines and smoking a joint or two before going to work? Eek! I wouldn't
>  want someone like literally holding my life in their hands.
>
>- How do we control drug use by underage people whose personalities are
>  still in development? If drugs are readily available, and even if they are
>  semi-controlled, like alcohol, how do you keep little kids away from the
>  stuff until they are grown up enough to make informed decisions, especially
>
>  if older kids are doing it in school, beyond your supervision.
>
>The trouble is that you'll never find GOP/Dem candidate to back total
>legalization. The GOP is too conservative, and the Democrats will NOT
>jeopardize themselves by allowing themselves to be painted as drug-libertines
>
>at this point.
>
>'Tis a shame, this is one area where I feel that we have done a very poor
>job,
>and could use some new ideas.

It's a strawman, really, for the Drug Warriors [tm] to say that
problems of abuse are unique to the drugs now banned.   That's
simply not so.  Alcohol is much worse in its ability to intoxicate,
ability to addict, and ability to wreak physical havoc on the
abuser.    And of course the experience in the Netherlands
demonstrates that people self-regulate with marajuana just as with
booze;  marajuana  is no more a 'gateway' to more serious drugs than
milk is to alcohol abuse. 

Arguments against repeal of Prohibition turned on the same spindle
as Drug Warrior [tm] arguments today -- that without this huge,
expensive, Constitution-subverting bureaucracy, everyone would go
mad with drug abuse and it would be The End Of Civilisation As We
Know It. 

So i'd respond to your questions by pointing to alcohol.  There are
a certain number of people in positions of trust who don't behave
responsibly in their use of alcohol, and they destroy lives thereby.
But the vast majority of people _do_ behave responsibly, and we rely
on peer pressure and social penalties to discourage or punish the
few.   And it works. 

I would also point out something that's _never, ever_ discussed:
the number of people who abuse their social or economic power and
ruin the lives of others.  Slumlords; embezzling lawyers; government
functionaries on the take; tycoons who think nothing of wrecking the
lives of hundreds with wholesale sackings, or of polluting the
environment beyond repair, or of exploiting their political
connections to consume public resources for their personal benefit;
employers who discriminate unfairly in job-related decisions.   They
are also noxious, but no one in government proposes a gigantic
bureaucracy to dig them out, root and branch, and get rid of them.
Can't imagine why not, of course :-\


Take out a membership in the Drug Reform Coalition, Rick:
http://www.drc.org 
If we all did that, we might see some progress.